WATCH: You might be a "cultural libertarian" if...

We're all familiar with today's enemies of freedom: Third Wave feminists, social justice warriors and the perpetually offended. We often call these enemies of free expression "cultural Marxists" for short.

At Breitbart.com, Allum Bokhari coined a new phrase to describe those of us who oppose cultural Marxists.

He calls us cultural libertarians.

I say "us" because he included me as an example in his article, and I'm proud to embrace the label.

So how are cultural libertarians different from other libertarians?

Primarily: Many libertarians believe that the only true censorship, the kind we should fight against, is censorship carried out by the government.

On the other hand, cultural libertarians, as the name implies, realize that today, people can be effectively silenced by non-state actors, too -- that is, by non-governmental cultural Marxists who use smear campaigns, especially on the internet, to destroy their opponents.

Remember: An authoritarian culture will eventually lead to an authoritarian State -- the very thing other libertarians oppose.

Cultural libertarians believe that freedom is threatened by both the State and by the "perpetually offended.

Bill Elder, you are right. Political correctness is merely a euphemism for censorship.
There is a reason that the most effective left-wing radical have studied language and the ways in which people’s thinking can be directed by regulating how and when and whether certain words (thoughts) can be expressed. After a while, those inconvenient thoughts can atrophy in the collective consciousness.

While I’m on a rant about how the left fails the cultural and social test to serve society, I may as well enunciate why I came to this conclusion -
Western Civilization is based on two main principles, the Golden Rule (reciprocal morality) and Critical Thought (analytical reasoning).

Critical thought requires free speech to examine, debate and critique ideas on their merit. Progress, even survival itself, has depended on testing hypotheses and discarding those which are inferior in describing or dealing with reality. Free open public speech/debate is the social equivalent of the scientific method, both are intent on finding the truth – and the truth is often a hard taskmaster.

Without critical thought and free public debate, it is easy for inferior, false and even destructive ideologies, which are incompatible with our free society, liberal democracy and rule of law, to take root and be used to subvert it.
The rise of political correctness and cultural Marxism both seek to limit free speech and fair comment to prevent free public discussion or critique of either cultural Marxism (group identity politics) or the social enmity of political correctness.

We’ve been suffering under this condition for a generation, it has the effect of rendering us politically “deaf, dumb and blind”. Helpless to identify or defend ourselves against the enemies of reason, fairness and freedom within our own culture and borders.

Without facts, no matter how harsh (to judge social/political theories upon,) there is no true solutions. There is only raw untried ideology no matter how wrong or damaging. So the next time you see political or social debate shut down using some fallacious charge of “racism, Sexism, homophobia, white privilege “ etc, be aware the proponent of stopping free discussion of their ideas has an agenda which is incompatible with advanced cultural and social norms which cannot stand the scrutiny of reason.

Nathan W commented –
“Conservatives are experts at smear campaigns. In fact, it’s their main method of campaigning.”
I won’t disagree except to say that there is a big difference between negative advertising and “smearing” someone’s reputation which you seem to make no distinction. A small point but relevant because the negative Tory ads quote JT directly and criticize his thinking, not him personally.

On the other hand the Liberals are masters of the big deception – they use snide innuendo to smear opponents (which is a cowardly way to commit slander). But the main crime in LPC campaigning is the way they subvert/distort the truth, their operational record and their intentions/agendas. I may disagree with the NDP in basic world view but at least they make no pretense about their intentions or what they are – authoritarian statist socialists. The Liberals are too, as well as corporate cronies and a political power brokerage cabal, but they pose as “progressives”/Liberals – and nothing could be further from reality – there is nothing less “liberal” than a liberal government with a majority.

But damn those western feminists the Saudi women model their movement on, right? Let’s deny western women both gender equity and with it, freedom?

In the west, our freedoms are NOT threatened by gender equity.

Lauren, you continue to conflate feminism, the Saudi feminism that just won the vote and mainstream feminism in the west that applauds the Saudi feminists who model themselves on the western feminist goal of gender equity, with so-called third-wave or radical feminism. You know the difference but continue to ignore it for sales, to speak to misogynist bias to satisfy your selfish political ambition.

The core values of so-called third-wave feminists are gender and racial INEQUALITY. They advocate for BROWN racial SUPREMACY as their number one goal, and give only cursory voice to their stated secondary goals of gay and (in distant third place) female supremacy. You are a smart enough girl Lauren. You must understand that with those values, so-called third-wave feminists are NOT feminists at all, by definition alone, but imposters who are using western media and pundits/politicians like you to do their dirty work for them, the dirty work of denigrating the core value of democratic society – equality under the law – with a view to weakening our society with the argument that western women need to be oppressed and to convince men to vote shariah to do it.

blaming women for rape is very popular in shariah-ruled societies. As if men have no self-control.

When anti-feminists like you damn to hell women who continue to fight for gender equity in the west by denigrating, with Gavin and Roosh, women’s equality, you attempt to deal the worst of possible blows to freedom. You pursue the denial of freedom to one half of humany.

Good thing Libertarians continue to be such a fringe party in Canada. Like so many of your membership that actively promote overthrow of our rule of law – Freemen-on-the-Land. With these rogues that actively hate female freedom, you seek to split the right and usher in a pro-sariah NDP government. We aren’t quite there yet in Canada, thank Christ!! And before we get there, let’s hope some freedom-loving entertainment advocate like Ezra – I say “like Ezra” because he has taken an anti-feminist, anti-education stance – will expose where the funding comes from to promote the voices of Freemen-on-the-Land, anti-feminist, anti-gender-equity, so-called Libertarians like Roosh, Gavin and our very-own loved and lauded, politically-ambitious Lauren Southern.

@ Peter Netterville commented
“I guess then that the question is, “What constituted damage.” Is there some method in Libertari -anism for defining the criteria by which “damage” is defined.”

Provable physical damages – loss/damaged of property, personal harm. I don’t think Libertarianism has a codex of legal terms ;-) But as a philosophy I would say that it condemns any infringement of the natural rights of a peaceful individual.

Lauren, I hope this won’t go to your head and spoil you, but I dare say, you have a surprising amount of insight at your age. I’m a lot older than you, but I just learned from you. I like the term ‘cultural libertarian’ that you used, it is quite apt.

I would like to propose a new term (at least I haven’t heard it before) for the leftist destroyers of free speech in Canada and elsewhere: progressive fascism/progressive fascist. Just as the fascist German National Socialists (Nazis) and various other fascist socialist/communist regimes have suppressed free speech in order to enact their agendas without opposition, the new progressive socialist fascists are suppressing free speech for non-progressives today in Canada, the USA, etc. They hide behind their ‘progressive’ labels such as liberal, democratic socialist, etc., but their free-speech-suppressing actions are fascist. And sadly, they have already succeeded in suppressing free speech in Canada etc. There are subjects I would like to talk about here and in other venues, but I dare not, after the prosecution of various Canadians like Ezra Levant by certain quasi-judicial bodies with state power, and after the Canadian Supreme Court’s ruling a year or so ago in the case of a Saskatchewan man, in which they stated that truth is not a defense in freedom of speech disputes in this country. This is what Canada has come to in the 21st Century. Watch your back, Lauren. Progressive fascist fanatics don’t take prisoners. They like to think they are morally superior to conservatives, but the truth is that they are just fascists, just like the Nazis were fascists.

Hey, Lauren, here’s a good one for you: Q: What is a democratic socialist? A: A socialist who hasn’t been elected yet.

The left has to have “victims” to defend or their lives are just not worth a dime. In their zero-sum world, they can’t imagine making themselves safe and happy, but maybe it’d work for others. Still, if the leftists couldn’t find (or create) groups of oppressed victims to defend, they’d have to get real jobs and actually work for a living! Out-sourcing and projecting their adversarial needs onto “deserving victim groups” might magically transform them from whiny losers into altruistically committed “crusaders for social justice!”

Bear in mind that they will also remain too afraid to accuse any real, potentially dangerous live human criminals of their crimes, and so must in stead always restrict them selves to accusing group idols, and that always means introducing fact-free, cause-and-effect reversed relativism into the equation: all real live criminals must be seen to be helpless victims of some other group’s historical oppressions, for it to work.

And this is also of course why they will always back the aggressors (muslims and other criminals) ‘rights,’ and always attack the non-violent (Christians and Jews) – because there’s no personal risk in it for them, and lots of public support available for such actions for them among the ever-present criminal elements.

And, by aligning them selves with, and championing, some unrelated group’s historic oppression narrative, they can give free rein to their own propensity for attacking everyone first, by rationalizing it as really only being an ongoing, defensive counter-attack (attacking second).

…and, as for multiculturalism (which is racism) and reverse discrimination or preferential hiring policies: it’s the same old canard of communists everywhere, inflicting and extorting a forced equality of outcome, rather than equality of opportunity, which of course always really only punishes those who could otherwise succeed, and rewards those who choose not to.

It’s pre-emptively victim-blaming slander, as well:

“Because someone sort of like you may have once discriminated against someone sort of like them somewhere (not necessarily even here,) therefore we will take from you and give to them.”

This is where group-might-made-rights gets us: all the real human individual citizens are deprived of their real human rights, because liberal cry babies want to pretend that “All minorities were oppressed, decimated and genocided into their minority status by evil majorities! Always!”

So if Abdul is the first member of his tribe to arrive here, and after a merely subjective amount of time has passed without him becoming President – whether he tried to or not – some liberal will cry “Unfair!” and hold its breath until it turns blue to extort the outcome it wants.

We must stop people from pretending there are group rights at all. When groups have rights, those not in those groups have LESS rights, and so all such laws discriminate against real individual human citizens; they are illegal “laws.” Government is us – it’s our largest, bulk-buying best priced collectively-owned insurance company; those we hire (‘elect’) to run it, are supposed only to maintain it and defend our collective needs, never cater to private wants, and so it’s certainly NOT their job to sell it all off, especially not to our self-declared enemies, by buying their money!

Fred Bastiat noted something like “We all have the natural right to self-defense; bad laws are those which try to deprive us of that right.”

Liberals always insist only groups have rights, and so the only defense we need is the government; ergo, we must, in stead, all strive to learn to become better victims. It’s our civic duty! Whee!

The only real ‘rule’ of morality and civilization is the Golden Rule of Law, which is simply: “Do Not Attack First.” All sub-sequent laws should be based on this. That way, the only real right anyone has, is to not be attacked first, and our only real responsibility is to not attack innocent others first.

Thus we as real human individuals have a natural right to self-defense. Especially from gangs.

By agreeing to this one simple rule, we achieve trust, progress, and civilization.

By idolatrously pretending to defend our false group-might-made “rights,” we can falsely and pre-posterously “justify” ourselves in attacking innocent others “in response” to historical grievances suffered by someone else (but members of “our group” – right OR WRONG)!

This is how and why idolatrous liberals (and moslems) sell tribal group rights and ignore basic individual human rights, endorsing the false brazen rule of chaos, where they declare their tribal group-god insists only they have the right and duty to always attack all the non-members of their gangs first – from which they inflict on themselves and everyone else, distrust, stagnation, and barbarism … the true jungle law of “might makes right” and mob-rule: the gangsters’ criminal extortion rackets.

“All minorities were decimated into that status by oppressive majorities! Always!”

“We have to let the violent criminals do what they want to us, or else they’ll do what they want to us anyway!”

“We must all learn to Submit to extortion and learn to become better victims, thus maintaining the imaginary moral high ground!”

By endorsing group rights, any criminal has an automatic alibi for their crimes, if they can pre-posterously claim “retaliation” for something that once happened anywhere to anyone even only vaguely or remotely “like them.”

Then they can always claim “acting under mental duress of institutional oppression” excuses.

Which is basically just another variant on the institutional systematic procedural favorite:

“I didn’t do it – ONLY The GROUP did it! Whee!” always endorsed by corporate government types!

The group rights stance is always idolatry and slanderous, prejudicial fraud and extortion; it’s crime.

And that’s the whole liberal “group rights” extortion credo in a nuts hell: it pretends to give them the excuse to take other people’s stuff while still claiming victimhood (“I had no choice!”) status!

“Cultural Marxists” are really only GANGSTEREXTORTIONISTS. And their weapon of choice, Political correctness (factual incorrectness) is really only extortion and – at least attempted – thought control. It’s basic human nature to react in denial to any and all new ideas, every time; so, to pretend everyone has a responsibility to not offend anyone else, ever, to not hurt their feelings with the often painful Truth, is not only insane, it’s literally impossible.

PC is both fraud (crime) and extortion – pretending that, either you lie along with the majority, or you’ll be replaced with a better liar by that same majority; group might makes right! Exact same as communazism.

Price Knight said, "Peter, we don’t have to make that one so much a restriction as a criminal offense… "

Yes, that is true. And as I mentioned to Glenn, intent is the key. If it is just said to “blow off steam” and no real intent to incite violence is there, then it should not be prosecuted as an incitement to violence.

Glen Craig said, "Peter, what about shouting KILLTHEUMPIRE at a baseball game? Or in incidents like on that train in France if I was to shout "GET THATHADJSON-OF-A BITCHANDPIMPHIM A PLATOON OF VIRGINS!!!! or “HOLD HIMDOWNWHILE I GET A PAIR OF RUSTYSCISSORS TO SCALP HIM” "

I guess it really comes down to the intent of the speech. Did the person truly mean to incite violence, or as in the phrases you posted, are just rhetoric, not meant to be acted upon.

BTW – Lauren – wonderful and refreshing to here the practical libertarian perspective articulated so well. You are refreshing break from the insipid bi-partisan wrangling that passes for political debate in this country.

I have been a practicing libertarian since before university and have remained so ever since. It’s a great philosophy to guide your personal life and your public life. Practical libertarianism (classic Liberalism) holds that the original crime is to force, coerce, or defraud a peaceful individual into doing something they don’t want to or which damages them. Libertarianism holds freedom to be the prime motivator of society and humanity and the only restrictions on this freedom is that the freedom to do what you want ends at the point it damages or negatively impacts someone else’s freedoms or property. Libertarian idealism is IMHO the highest possible attainment of the moral society and individual – if you can aspire to simply not infringe on other’s freedoms and stand guard against those who do, this is the highest purpose you can serve in a society.

Peter Netterville – Peter, common-law (the basis and guiding principle in our statute law, supposedly) is based in libertarian principles – minimal restraint on individual freedom except where damage is evident. No one has claim on another unless he can prove damages, no crime is a crime without a victim proving damages – In other words you have the freedom to do and speak as you will unless it can be proven you have damaged someone with irresponsible speech (Slander/defamation based in lies). We have common-law and statutes against damaging people with speech filled with false accusations or inciting people to damage others with your speech – and rightfully so. Where this breaks down is when we allow the paradigms of socialist absolutism to intercede in the normal operation of the rule of law – this is evident in thought crimes and hurt feelings as being actionable for damages – Libertarianism and indeed the common-law hold that you may say some ugly and hateful things about other individuals (as long as you do not advocate violence against them) –the defense is the truth. If the unflattering things you say about someone are true or you believe them to be true on reasonable evidence/probability – this is fair comment and has been protected by la for 800 yrs. – hurt feelings are not actionable and it is not slander if it is disparaging but true in fact or on the basis of probabilities.

So we really is no conflict with the common law regulation (tort) on speech or actions with the libertarian principles it’s based upon – the problem we face is when the statute laws recognize unreasonable restrictions or judicial tests on free speech such as those imposed by cultural Marxism and all of the quasi-judicial tribunals which function on soviet star chamber totalist justice in which the mere accusation of guilt becomes absolute until proven otherwise – (reverse onus).
The fact one can suffer career and financial ruin through accusation of a pseudo-crime by a soviet styled star chamber tribunal for speaking the truth as you see it (fair comment) and bruising the feelings/ego (even retroactively) of overly sensitive constantly agreived people who need not prove damages, is a legacy of malevolent totalism and foreign to our libertarian common-law systems of justice.

I can’t help but to have noticed over the last few months the increasing quality of commentary on this site, as well as the number of new commenters. I mean a stunning quality of informed intelligence, backed by courage and integrity and a willingness to speak out – there are several examples on this page. This is either a reflection of the quality of THEREBEL staff, or THEREBEL is having a TRUMPEFFECT on Canadians…
Either way, lets keep this ball rolling into an effective push-back against,“…today’s enemies of freedom: Third Wave feminists, social justice warriors and the perpetually offended.”
I am now and have always been, a small ‘c’ conservative redneck – even when I was an urban liberal and didn’t realize my true nature.

Cultural Libertarian, interesting term; I like it. However, it is sad that a term has to be coined for people who just want to be left alone to live a happy life with out interference; something SJW’s oppose. I think I posted once before that the regressive left is now the establishment and the progressive right is the counter-establishment. Maybe instead of calling ourselves cultural libertarians we should instead be called cultural revolutionaries.

Cultural libertarian question off topic and I apologize in advance to the perpetually offended who will take offense: Why is it that female commenters from the right of any age group look fresh, happy, confident, intelligent, but those from the left look as if they are waiting to void the toothpick they swallowed with the appetizer at a champagne function?

Peter, we already have laws against “incitement”
John, Well said – I’ll borrow that if you don’t mind!
Vlad, I’m 2/3 through The Road to Serfdom. It’s worth pointing out, out schools got rid of such books in order to indoctrinate our kids into Socialism. It’s also worth pointing out, we are so precisely repeating the events that lead up to WWII it’s down right frightening.